[pygtk] Combobox with thousands of rows

[Walter Leibbrandt]

Rob Brown-Bayliss wrote:
> I need a way to let users pick one of approx 8000 names from a list 
> and had thought to use a combobox but it is far too slow taking 
> several seconds to pop up, and scrolling is unusable.
Have you tried using multiple columns? gtk.ComboBox.set_wrap_width()
> Does any one have an idea or solution that does not take up too much 
> screen space.
If your users have a good idea of what is in the collection or what 
they're searching for, you could use a gtk.Entry with an associated 
gtk.EntryCompletion (or even a gtk.ComboBoxEntry with completion). I 
have used EntryCompletions in Spelt 
(https://translate.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/translate/src/trunk/spelt/spelt/gui/edit_area.py) 
and added some optimization hacks:
* Line 542: The completion is only done once the text in the Entry has 
reached a predetermined minimum length.
* Lines 543-548: A timeout is used to implement a delay between the last 
change made to the text and starting the completion.
* Method _complete_root(): A filtered TreeModel is used as the 
completion's model.

This approach has been tested with 100 000 rows and was still usable, 
although slightly slow.

If, on the other hand, your users have no knowledge about the data they 
are looking for, then your best bet is probably a TreeView.

-- 
Walter Leibbrandt                  Software Developer
Recent blogs:
* Firefox-style button with a pop-up menu
http://www.translate.org.za/blogs/walter/en/content/firefox-style-button-pop-menu